Scholarly Communication Toolkit

Scholarly Communication: Definition and Background

The following is excerpted with permission from Suzanne Thorin's paper Global Changes in Scholarly Communication. This paper was presented at e-Workshops on Scholarly Communication in the Digital Era, August 11-24, 2003 at Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan.

Introduction

For more than a decade, the cost of print and electronic journals, particularly in the sciences, has increased rapidly at the same time that the amount of research being reported via published articles has grown exponentially. With academic libraries being less and less able to purchase the journals needed for their communities, the use of the term scholarly communication has evolved to illustrate the breakdown of the process of traditional scholarly publication; that is, as a means to disseminate research results, the present system of scholarly communication can no longer meet the needs of the scholarly community at large.

When looking closely at the term scholarly communication, it has a somewhat broader meaning than publication, as it also includes the processes by which scholars communicate with one another as they create new knowledge and by which they measure its worth with colleagues prior to making a formal article available to the broader community. For the purposes of this paper we are dividing the scholarly communication process into three distinct aspects: 1) the process of conducting research, developing ideas, and communicating informally with other scholars and scientists; 2) the process of preparing, shaping, and communicating to a group of colleagues what will become formal research results; and 3) the ultimate formal product that is distributed to libraries and others in print or electronically.

The publicity surrounding the cost of the final product has come about because librarians in effect stand at the end of an assembly line holding an item, that in a growing number of cases, we simply cannot afford to buy. For some time, much of the academic world has been perplexed as to why librarians are creating such a fuss about the price of journals. Many faculty are only vaguely aware that library budgets have shrunk in buying power, and some express frustration with the amount of funding given to building complex information technology environments at their campuses instead of allocating it to meet their direct needs, including books and journals in their fields. Under what is still on the surface a relatively stable environment for teaching, learning, and scholarship, seismic changes are actually occurring that are affecting each stage of the scholarly communication process. Springing up wildly and seemingly from nowhere are "sudden" changes that are ensuing from the increasing use of sophisticated digital technology by scholars and scientists. Massive and profound changes are occurring that are not only affecting teaching, learning, research, and administrative processes, but which are reshaping the academy itself. [1]

How Did We Get Here?

Jean-Claude Guedon, historian of science and professor of comparative literature at the Universite de Montreal, has written a definitive and elegant explanation of "how we got to where we are today." [2] It all began, Guedon writes, with Henry Oldenburg, who created a journal called Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (Phil Trans for short) in 1665. Oldenburg's aim was to document and distribute original contributions to knowledge. As Guedon notes, "In particular, it [Phil Trans] introduced clarity and transparency in the process of establishing innovative claims in natural philosophy, and as a result, it began to play a role not unlike that of a patent office for scientific ideas." [3] In other words, publication in this journal not only dispersed scientific ideas to the world at large, but it provided, in effect, a record of who introduced what new knowledge and when. Critical to Oldenburg's strategy was being able to attract the best authors from England and Europe. [4]

The purpose of a scholarly journal is not only to disseminate information to the community, but in it's present configuration it also provides quality control, a trusted archive, and author recognition. [5] But throughout the history of scientific publication, profit has also been an ingredient. And, as Guedon describes, the scientist/scholar can take either of two roles. The first, as a scholar/faculty member seeking published research of others or his/her own published research, the faculty member can complain loudly about how inequitably the library's acquisitions budget has been spent and particularly about any serials cancellations in his/her field. The second role, which is considerably nobler, is one that s/he assumes as author. Ignoring any economic considerations, s/he cares about the visibility of the journal, its authority, prestige, and its so-called impact factor. That the journal where the article appears is enormously expensive is possibly a factor that even increases its prestige.

In the traditional process of publication, a completed article, as opposed to a pre-print, is necessary because the article needs to be validated through peer review and its ownership recognized. As an author is footnoted by others, the quality of the journal cited helps to build the reputation of the author. But the location of the article in a distinguished journal is paramount because it helps to "brand" the author by linking his/her name and work to that journal. Guedon compares being published in the most prestigious journals to being on prime time television as opposed to the local news. The author is placed in an exclusive "club" of the very best researchers and his/her ability to get grants, tenure, and promotion is enhanced.

Another player in journal publishing is the editor, whose role is a gatekeeper, according to Guedon. "Silently, the journal's editor ...has come to occupy the role of guardian of truth and reality or, in other words, the role of a high priest." [6] The editor also gains prestige when the journal that he/she edits is referenced repeatedly and as the journal gains a reputation for being a major contributor to the record of science. When one understands the Janus-like role of scientists and scholars in the publishing process, the librarian, who plays a walk-on part and who sits well below the faculty in the university hierarchy, is relegated to a reactionary role.

These are ingredients that are causing this stable, albeit imperfect, system to begin to come apart. Several components that keep the process together have begun to fragment. The first weakening began with the explosion in the amount of research that came about after the Second World War. Until World War II, most scholarly publishing was supported by not-for-profit scholarly societies. The rapid growth of research in universities after the war resulted in more articles than could be handled by the existing societies. Impatient authors, who wanted to see the results of their research published more quickly, turned to commercial journals which previously had no or little interest in articles which they believed held no hope of profit.

Guedon argues that there are two other issues: 1) the concept of core journals evolved, and 2) the Science Citation Index (SCI) began to be published in 1961. With limited budgets, we librarians have always wanted to find a way to buy only what is needed by our constituencies. We proceeded to identify and codify the critical serials for each discipline, believing we could satisfy most needs of our local research scientists through what were subsequently called core collections. In the print world this was a fairly reasonable approach because each library needed to collect virtually the same volumes. When the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) published the SCI, it enabled one to trace citations for articles across all science journals. From this feature came the "impact factor," that is, the number of times an article is cited directly relates to it importance in the field. As we have already noted, it is the journal itself, not the individual articles, that gain status from being cited because it is the journal's impact that brands the scientist. By making the journal the most important element in publication, Guedon argues, the researchers seek the "visibility, prestige, and authority (and improved institutional ranking) in these publications." And further, by limiting the citation analysis to a core of journals, the SCI made these journals elite. This argument is important because it sets the stage for why the ensuing price increases could occur.

It is likely that the entry of commercial firms into scientific journal publishing probably produced some healthy competition between the groups at first. But once the core journals had been defined by libraries and the SCI data became integral to the prestige of these journals, librarians had no choice but to purchase the core journals, and we did. The stage was now set for dramatic price increases within a closed market and for the ensuing merges where publishers have attempted to increase their profits by buying other companies which shared the market.

Learn More

Suzanne E. Thorin, Global Changes in Scholarly Communication. This paper was presented at e-Workshops on Scholarly Communication in the Digital Era, August 11-24, 2003 at Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan. 23 pp.
In addition to the background information excerpted above, this paper documents other changes which are destabilizing longstanding traditions and early efforts to address high prices of commercial journal publishers. Thorin also discusses disciplinary differences in scholarly communication and the resulting need for multiple responses.

Jean-Claude Guedon, "In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing" (Washington, DC: The Association of Research Libraries, 2002).
Jean-Claude Guedon, historian of science and professor of comparative literature at the Universite de Montreal, has written a definitive and elegant explanation of "how we got to where we are today."

1. These changes were predicted in 1998 by Hawkins and Battin in their book, The Mirage of Continuity: Reconfiguring Academic Information Resources for the 21st Century, Washington DC: Council on Library and Information Resources (1998), 290pp.; Duderstadt, Atkins, and Van Houweling have recently written on the same topic: Higher Education in the Digital Age: Technology Issues and Strategies for American Colleges and Universities, Westport: Greenwood Publishing (2002), 304pp.
2. Jean-Claude Guedon, "In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing," Washington, DC: The Association of Research Libraries (2001), 70pp.
3. Ibid., p.5.
4. There were many reasons that Oldenburg did not achieve his goal of placing all knowledge of the natural sciences in his journal for distribution to the community at large. Guedon notes that the roles of writers, printers, and bookstore owners were still being explored in the 17th century, much as the relationship between Internet service providers, networks, authors, and users are still evolving today.
5. Fytton Rowland, "Print Journals: Fit for the Future?" Ariadne: The Web Version 7 (January 1997), p.1.
6. Guedon, p.17.